Bringing The Guns To Bear
open edition print, 13” x 16”

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This piece was commissioned by a client who simply requested an aircraft portrait of MvR's famous red tripe 425/17. This client is also an SE5 fan so he asked if we could include one in the background. I suggested we make the SE5 a victim and he agreed, so with that I began looking up MvR's victims to see what markings I would need to use for the SE5.

Turns out that MvR didn't shoot down any SE5s while flying his famous all-red tripe. He actually only flew that particular aircraft, serial number 425/17, for a couple of weeks. He had a couple other partially red tripes which he flew more often. His last SE5 claim was made while he was flying tripe # 477/17. (And here is where the controversy regarding the color of 477/17 begins!!). Some believe that 477/17, like its cousin 425/17, was painted completely red. However, one well known photo, one that many believe to be of this aircraft, suggests otherwise. This tripe shown in that photo carried Balkan crosses on the fuselage and tail and Eisernen crosses on the wings. The fuselage and lower two wings were painted with the typical streaked olive drab scheme. Only the upper wing, the cowling, the struts and the horizontal stabilizer were painted red.

This particular victory represented #67 for MvR. The victim was Lt J.P. McCone. I didn't have any information on the specific marking on McCone's SE, but here is what I did find out - McCone was a member of 41 Squadron. On the fateful day of march 24 he was flying SE5a serial #C1054, a Hispano-Suiza powered SE. No information on his specific markings, but 41's squadron markings were 2 white vertical bars, one on either side of the fuselage roundel. On March 22 they received orders to move both bars back behind the roundel and make them broader. this order came through only 2 days before McCone's death and I took a guess that he probably hadn't had a chance to change his over yet, thus he still carried the old markings. I later found a photo of his wrecked SE. Unfortunately not much in terms of markings was clear, but I could see that my guess was correct about the bars not being changed yet.

Details of Bringing the Guns to Bear
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The Galleries / WW1 Open Editions